Back from the Field - Carilee Osborne

My research seeks to both characterise the post-apartheid welfare state (what does it look like?) and understand the dynamics that have shaped it (why does it look like this?). In doing so it seeks to both draw on and contribute to the literature on state capacity, state autonomy and state-society relations with a particular interest in understanding different developmental trajectories for states in the global south in the 21st century. Previously in my masters research at Brown, I wrote about these questions in relation to one specific welfare policy in South Africa: the expansion of the COVID-19 Special Relief of Distress (SRD) Grant, a cash transfer programme that was instituted during the pandemic but which, to a large extent because of action on the part of civil society organisations, has repeatedly been extended and somewhat expanded. In that work I studied how civil society groups worked both with and against state actors (and vice versa) to push for the programme at each stage (inception, continuation and expansion). 

The GPD summer funding allowed me to travel to South Africa in order to explore how these ideas can be expanded upon further and in particular gave me the ability to work through how I could take this research forward in my dissertation project. This related to both extensions of the masters work directly and thinking about how to expand it. I used the summer to talk to a range of civil society actors engaged in current action around both the SRD grant as well as those working in a variety of other sectors. During this time I was able to observe major events as they took place. For example, civil society actors launched a major legal case against the government over the administration of the SRD. As a result of previously working with one of the organisations involved in this, I was able to observe this process firsthand including seeing the reactions of the public and the state in real time. I also began building archival materials related to relevant policy discussions, press statements, legislative debates and other materials. 

When applying for the summer funding I aimed to get a better sense about whether the material that I had gathered in my MA paper was useful and important enough to be expanded upon and to think through the way it could be broadened out into a dissertation project. As a result of my summer field work, I now have a better sense of what the scope of my project is and feel I am in a much better position to write grant proposals this fall and propose a dissertation topic in the Spring. Although I want to continue to use the case of the SRD in my work, my field work also showed me the difficulty of basing a project primarily on a case that is ongoing. Although there is a great deal of value that comes from in-real-time observations of these processes, they are also fluid and fast moving. As a result, I realised that for the dissertation I would need to augment these data by locating the SRD case in a broader and longer historical context of welfare-state making in South Africa. 

I think the GPD money is especially important for at least two reasons. The first is that it allows graduate students who are at an earlier stage to begin to test out their research ideas and begin developing their networks, relationships and research abilities before they are required to prepare a dissertation proposal or prospectus. As a result of my summer funding, I am now much clearer about the scope of my dissertation project and have a much clearer idea of what information I will need to gather for it. For example, over the summer I was able to begin to develop a draft questionnaire that I can roll out to civil society actors in order to better understand their interactions with the state. I have deepened my already-existing networks with civil society and state actors and identified where I may have gaps. The second, related point, is that it is much easier to understand even the broader political context about which one works when you are there. Although I am South African, follow South African news closely and speak with family and friends daily, there is no way to replicate being in a place, talking to people, watching the news, listening to the radio and immersing oneself in the actual place.